Film Review: “Karuppu”

Suriya’s 45^th film, Karuppu, has become the biggest hit of 2026 and looks set to become one of Suriya’s best performing films in recent times – but it’s success at the box-office and the many positive reviews it has attracted will come as a surprise to many who see the film.

R.J. Balaji has chosen interesting and varying themes since making his debut as a director. His confidence in creating a perfect masala entertainer for Suriya created heightened expectations of the film despite Suriya’s recent struggle to choose good scripts.

On seeing the film, one is left both puzzled and furious – puzzled by how a film like this can become a blockbuster and furious that Balaji – himself a film critic – could make a film that insults the intelligence of his audience.

The film opens with a father (Mattancherry Sukumaran) and his daughter, Binu (Anagha Maya Ravi) arriving in Chennai from the neighbouring state of Keralam to seek urgent medical treatment. A series of unfortunate incidents sees them in Court to register a claim for jewellery that was stolen on their night of arrival.

What should have been a simple process becomes a long drawn out effort to get past Baby Kannan (RJ Balaji), a corrupt lawyer, and an equally corrupt Magistrate, Rajanayagam (Natty Subramanian). Their lawyer, Preethi (Trisha) is totally helpless against the undisguised corruption. Then, the resident deity of the shrine outside the courtroom – Vettai Karuppu – manifests himself in human form as a lawyer, Saravanan (Suriya).

To the logical mind, that would have brought about the corruption driven atrocities to an end, but the all-powerful deity seems powerless against the human beings he has to tackle. What follows is a painful transformation of the deity to a “punch dialogue” cracking movie-style lawyer, complete with the stock slow-motion shots that lengthen the ordeal to unmanageable doses.

I have nothing against commercial films or the category categorised as mass films, but I prefer films that provide escapist fun without stretching credulity too much. There has to be some degree of credibility in the plot and characters and these must be connected with some level of logic. The problem with the script of Karuppu is that it has neither of these qualities.

Instead, it is a mindless clash of an under-resourced deity against villains who are impervious to the laws of nature, the laws of the land or the power of God.

Karuppu has an impressive cast of talented people, but none of them get even close to their potential with their roles. Suriya is reduced to a character similar to an 80s style T.Rajender-type role, while Trisha is reduced to a helpless bystander in a role that gives zero scope to her acting talent. Natty Subramanian follows the same fate as Trisha. RJ Balaji, who has proven his acting ability in numerous films, gives himself a caricature-type of role while even the talented George Maryan is unable to rise beyond his scripted role.

The others, led by Aadukalam Naren, Chithra Lakshmanan, Deepa Sankar, Swasika, Sshivada amd Mansoor Ali Khan are merely there to drive the narrative. Mattancherry Sukumaran as Binu’s hapless father, is the only actor who manages to make a mark.

A lot was written about the signing of music composer Sai Abhyankar for Karuppu, specifically about how he was going to redefine background scores. Sad to say, that he has achieved that. The cacophony that passes for the background score is jarring and painful to endure. None of the songs stand out as melodic or memorable, with only Athu Thalore coming close to being listenable.

G.K. Vishnu’s cinematography matches the rest of the film – stylised shots and clichéd framing dominate the film.

It is completely unbelievable that it took it took six people – R.J. Balaji, Rathnakumar, Ashwin Ravichandran, Rahul Raj. T.R. Gopi Krishnan and Karan Aravind Kumar – to produce a script this bad. It is even more unbelievable that Rathnakumar, who wrote scripts like 29 and Meyaadha Maan, could possibly have been involved with the script of Karuppu.

At a time when Tamil cinema is trying to make inroads into world cinema, it is extremely embarrassing that a film this badly made has now released on the global market. It is even more embarrassing that the film has done well in many overseas centres, giving the impression that Karuppu represents the peak of Tamil cinema.

With a duration of 152 minutes, Karuppu is 147 minutes too tong. Perhaps, you would join the majority and quite enjoy this film, or you might hold Tamil cinema to a higher standard and totally reject this film which is strongly reminiscent of Shankar’s Indian 2.

Karuppu scores 2 points out of 10.